ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews behavioral economics concepts that can provide a useful framework for increasing healthy dietary decisions and shifting the food environment toward healthy defaults. Consumer judgments, valuations, and habits are shaped by factors such as biases and heuristics, default options, and preferences. The current food environment heavily promotes highly processed foods, sugary beverages, and large portion sizes at relatively inexpensive prices, making it challenging for many consumers to maintain healthy dietary intake. Behavioral economics helps address some of the gaps of traditional economics by explaining the variety of nuances that influence decision-making; these nuances are especially relevant to food intake because of the competing factors involved in dietary choices. Making healthy dietary choices is difficult in the current food environment, where unhealthy food is typically inexpensive, highly palatable, and widely available. Behavioral economics principles consider that consumers often behave in irrational ways, even when perfect information is presented.
